Since time does not and cannot have any substance, and all things from their beginnings were born with time, neither time nor these things can stop for a moment, but instead go on in perpetual motion and revolution. They cannot be overcome and go on forever.
Father Antônio Vieira escaped alive from the constantly-lit fire of the Inquisition. He was punished with silence. He was accused and did not escape prison. His sentence was light: He lost the right to words and he was forced to remain living in a Jesuit college.
Taking advantage of his contacts at the Court of Portugal, Vieira managed to leave Portugal on a Jesuit mission with the Companhia de Jesus. It was not difficult for a great orator like Vieira to defend the canonization of Jesuit martyrs in Rome. His proximity to the Papacy allowed for negotiations which resulted in the reconsideration of his trial. In 1675 Vieira returned to Portugal free of the Tribunal's orders. He had furthermore regained the right to words.
Oratory was the instrument of his genius. With his enthusiastic preaching, he always maintained the depth and clarity which are necessary for reflection on Biblical texts. He studied, thought, and wrote. Thus, he did not build his history with an epic outcome in sight. Nor did he participate in undertakings which might have given him some heroic profile. On the contrary, in Rome, he obtained a diploma exempting him from the Portuguese Inquisition--which was not a heroic act.
In general, we construct a history with more glory of those persecuted by the Inquisition who remained faithful to their beliefs and who were tortured and put to death. In this way Vieira's sentence is not part of the heroic model, it excludes violence, and leaves him only with his solitude in the silence of prison.
The Inquisitorial setting, of which Vieira was a part, did not end in tragedy nor was it exceptionally moving. Everything happened in the midst of negotiations supported by his exquisite defense before the Tribunal. The spectacle had its beginning with the survival (not the death) of the narrator and concludes with a long task of re-working of the texts, the final version of which was refined in his last years of life.
Without the glory of heroes he was able to slowly produce a precise work whose power of reflection has maintained his work alive even today. After all, his sermons were his work and his life.
Even today, it is not simple to abandon the Romanesque aesthetic. It moves us and impresses us. We easily ennoble the history of those who died for their ideals. Heroic action values behaviors which explain their ethical content and the character integrity of the characters, thus facilitating the separation between good and evil for the receiver of the message. Everything can be explained. Everything is clear within the victim-executioner dualism.
In this way, death is the greatest proof that the hero can give to himself and to others who are certain (have faith) that there is no doubt for those who experience the central role of the drama. The final and conclusive answer requires apotheosis of the play and is retained in the memory of the survivors by means of descriptions ennobled by the steadfastness with which death is accepted.
Actually, Vieira's biography follows the opposite path. It expresses appreciation of the work and the forms of thought. In it the character seems to always be throwing his/her strength of expression into the text that he speaks and writes. Sacrificing the text, and thus the narrator, are avoided.
For a man of the 17th century accustomed to connecting his belief to what can be seen and touched, a structured behavior through words disarms the great Inquisitorial scene. The autos-de-fé became shows filled with emotions, and it was not easy to develop in a parallel manner another language capable of responding to that type of staging.
Vieira opted for the hardest route: discuss doctrine by avoiding accusations and scenes. His mission develops through a long initiation rite in which the listeners learned to think with rhetoric which was produced plastically. He thus tempted action and gave life to his narrative full of light and color. He rendered imprecise proof of guilt which was precariously used by witnesses who did not always know how to think but who wanted to participate in the spectacle of accusation. Thus, language, capable of standing out, weakened the motives that fed the desire to violence.
Words in Action
The ease with which Vieira handled language did not allow him to go unpunished by the Inquisition. His faith was contained in the way in which he used words, as much in religious life as in political life. And it was through words and Baroque rhetoric that he wove numerous meanings of the Christian faith thus transforming his faithful into active thinkers.
As a politician he was good at artifice and he knew how to manipulate the contradictions present in the life of the Court, business, and the Papacy. This Jesuit priest not only conspired against the Sacred Tribunal but also took the side of the Crown in detriment of the Companhia de Jesus, all the while using words as the basic tool of his work.
In daily life he reproduced the paradoxes of his text which was also marked by the presence of opposites. At times he was busy with political missions, living in the midst of pomp of the Court; at other times he preached in the Brazilian Sertão while living closely with blacks and Indians.
But it was the death of D. João IV, to whom he was an advisor, which deepened the political impasses and allowed for his denouncement by the Holy Tribunal. Removed from courtier life where he had previously found his protectors, he found no support to escape prison. His public pronouncements touched on forbidden topics. He defended the abolition of the discriminations of which those newly-converted to Christianity (new Christians) were victims.
Vieira questioned the procedures of the Holy Tribunal and evaluated the losses suffered by the Portuguese economy due to persecutory activities against "the people of the nation". He asked God to help him know how to represent Him. Thus, in the midst of his reflections, he built a profile of a politician that set him against the Inquisition even more.
His behavior vis-à-vis the new Christians was daring. His speeches, skillfully worked out, did not stop accusation from finding a good reason to remove him from the historical setting. His writings on the Prophetic Spirit of Bandarra and The Fifth Empire of the World, sent to the bishop of Japan to console queen D. Luíza de Gusmão on the death of her husband D. João IV, was fodder for accusation. The text written to console the queen ended up sending him to prison.
The Fortune of Baroque Thought
In order to analyze the rhetoric of the captive in Vieira, it is necessary to recognize the structure that characterizes his texts. First of all, it is noteworthy to remark on the meaning of the Baroque way of thinking. This is the central element capable of articulating all his discourse and we should not treat it merely as an ornament.
Language form organizes Vieira's thinking. His text constantly produces a multiplicity of meanings capable of draining the strength out of tyrannical or definitive explanations. In other words, the composition of paradoxes prevents Truth from appearing on a single plane. Words, within his rhetorical structure, must unleash a process of reflection thus undermining the strong tendency of Christian thinking which defined a single-voiced version of the narrative. The diversity of directions suggested by the text make naïve justifications in favor of slavery, destruction, or death more difficult.
In this way Vieira's discourse disorganizes a simplified version of faith. This is the element that creates the beauty and freedom of his thinking. A challenge was being created to which language had to respond, maintaining at the same time successive inquiries about the meaning of the of holy writings. Therefore, to reflect on Vieira's defense before the Inquisitorial Tribunal even today means regaining words as a way to dissolve the desire of violence.
The chosen method consisted of creating doubts in the interlocutor so that apparently just statements could become unjust. This transformation was carried out through various orderings that Vieira gave to the sentence.
Vieira organizes the placement of words in a clause by alternating meanings, an exercise which allows believers to fallow the elaboration of messages contained in the Holy Scriptures. This is his work, his mission, and through it he ought to be able to survive.
Form and Speech
The first step for one to understand the structure of Vieira's thought consists of revealing the form and central arguments guiding the making of his sermons. Those elements allowed one to understand the meaning of his defense before the Inquisitorial Tribunal. In the silence of the forms which translated his reflection we can see an exquisite struggle for life, a profound will to be able to use his words in public.
Therefore the goal was not to pursue unity since the writings (sermons and the defense) do not resemble one another. When before the Tribunal, Vieira wanted only to agree and to find out what his accusers wanted to hear without them noticing this wish, made a priori , to reflect upon an interpretation already known in the Bible. In the sermons he preached to teach the faithful. In his defense he wrote with necessary care to obey the Tribunal and thus receive permission to continue his way of enquiry.
Let's take as an example the process through which Vieira elaborates his narrative structure: The Sermão da Sexagésima, which Vieira preached in the Capela Real in 1655. In it he discusses the meaning of the word of God: "If the word of God is so effective and powerful, why do we see such little fruit from the word of God?"
Observe the way that he uses the word God, using repetition as his resource. By repeating, it is possible to get back the original meaning and place it on another level. This change indicates that Vieira considers himself to be an interlocutor capable of translating a Holy Scripture whose meanings are not always apparent.
By introducing doubt, Vieira forces his interlocutors to doubt and question the historical circumstances which allow omnipotence to flourish. He mistrusts actions which leave room only for torture or death of the "other".
The Figures of speech in the Rhetorical Plot
The figures of speech Vieira used cannot be seen merely as reflections of the Biblical message. One of the main images used by the author to explain this process is the mirror. The metaphor of the mirror is mimesis of the very form of the narration, capable of identifying, transforming, and multiplying the meanings of the statement.
Thus, Vieira dissolves the naïve meaning contained in the surface of images presented to the reader and listener. The good and the bad, right and wrong move toward one another and begin to gain similarities. In other words, what seems good is not always good and suggests to the interlocutor to be careful with easy answers or hasty actions.
The process of repeating some elements of the text does not reinforce the original statement. On the contrary, by repeating, Vieira transforms meaning and favors ambiguity of meaning. Observe:
For a man to see himself three things are necessary: eyes, a mirror, and a light. If he has a mirror and is blind, he cannot see for lack of eyes; if he has a mirror and eyes, and it is night, he cannot see for lack of light. Therefore there is a need for light, there is a need for a mirror, and there is a need for eyes. What is the conversion of a soul if not the entering of a man into himself and seeing himself? For this to be seen eyes are necessary, light is necessary, and a mirror is necessary. The preacher rivals the mirror, which is the doctrine, God rivals light, which is grace; man rivals the eyes which is knowledge. But, given that the conversion of souls by means of preaching depends on these three rivalries: of God, the preacher, and the listener; through which of them will be understand what is lacking? On the part of the listener, the preacher or God?(3)
The first step toward beginning a reflection involved the presence of figures: the mirror (representing the doctrine), light (representing grace), and eyes (representing knowledge). The images defined visual spaces where the rhetorical plot was constructed. The "story" to be told takes place within the rhetoric and not the plot allowing the narration (as form) to gain a plot.
The three elements (mirror, light, and eyes) become organized as if we were in a game that opened the door to other combinations with specific meanings for each of the orders he composed. Vieira does not compose six alternatives. He organizes three orders of meaning in logical principles. But it is in the syntax of phrases that the freedom of the discourse is realized, for the narrator does not allow for conclusions in any of the orders. The variables created by the combination of the elements cited, although answering a logical criterion of argumentation, are imploded when they link the movement of discourse to the sender and to the receiver.
To consider the conversion of a soul as the effort of a man to enter himself and see himself is admirable devotion on the part of the narrator to provoke imagination. The search for oneself initiates an unending line of questioning. Thus, the sequence of images (mirror, light, and eyes) does not establish a correct direction to the receiver of the message. It is up to her/him to analyze as well, and avoid what she/he assumes to be the Truth
Vieira's proposal to abolish the discrimination the new Christians suffered is a good example of the possibilities open to this way of thinking. However, for those reading the Holy Scriptures as repository of examples, the speech of the Jesuit priest was very threatening.
Vieira inquires, apparently disobeys, translates and retranslates thought using key words whose syntax when transformed, enrich the meanings of the statements discussed. This liveliness of the meaning obtained through rhetoric is able to generate in the interlocutor, accustomed to inflexibility when interacting with a text, a certain insecurity and irritation with the narrator. Carrying out this work within the Church is a task of those who indeed believe in the Word.
Instead of imposing a moral significance, which easily moves an audience, or even define a goal in the name of the faithful, Vieira prefers to elaborate on statements and objections to his own thought. As we observe in the Sermão da Sexagésima - Semen est verbum Dei, Luc., VIII:
1a. But since a preacher has so many qualities and in preaching there are so many laws and the preacher can be blamed for them all, what does this guilt consist of? [...]
2a. Is it perchance the style that we use today in the pulpits? A style so intricate, a style so difficult, a style so affected, a style so having so much to do with art and nature.
3 a. Is it by the subject-matter or subject-matters that the preachers take? [...]
4 a. Is the lack of vocation that we see in many preachers a coincidence?[...]
5 a. In the end is it the cause that we so search for, the voice with which the preachers speak today? [...](4)
The narrative constructed using these statements is very complex. When the reader begins to look at a direction given by the narrator to the very organization of his statements, the text that develops breaks the balance of the initial hypothesis. Thus nothing becomes definitely harmonious. It is impossible to examine oneself in this text. A new line of questioning constantly comes up. Vieira's response is univocal only in its appearance:
Do you know (Christians) why today so little fruit comes from so much preaching [of the Word]? It is because the words of those who preach are words, but not the words of God.(5)
The message given discards words that are only words, but through the syntax maintains a place for what is unexpressed, allowing for the appearance of interpretations. What after all are the Words of God?
Vieira manipulates the narrative form so that his interlocutor may question himself in a slow and profound process of reflection and introspection. Reflecting and examining one's own thoughts are two inadequate exercises for times of persecution and violence, when very few people risk thinking and even fewer inquiring or searching themselves publicly. From this task Vieira did not turn away.
Doubt and the Mirror
Although his form of reflection is innovative to the point of challenging the Inquisition, Vieira also incorporates into his way of speaking a markedly Medieval tendency: He understands how to accentuate the presence of images. Observe:
Man in whatever state he may be, is certainly dust and to dust he must return. Was he dust and must he return to dust? Therefore he is dust. Because everything that lives is not what it is, it is what it is to be.(6)
Frequently when we read texts like this we enjoy the feeling that we can materialize ideas. Vieira interrogates us, but first constructs the image of dust. The image of dust introduces us to reflection. It becomes a stage and goes beyond the illustration of the proposed subject. This trajectory, apparently illustrative, becomes broken with the repetition of the word dust and allows for a reorganization of the statement, achieving clarity of the initial design of the phrase. By repeating, the interlocutor distances himself from the initial figure and perceives the word as a sign capable of suggesting various meanings.
The sequential images allow discourse to have unity and, at the same time, they dislocate the meaning of each of the elements initially proposed. The narrative structure maintains rhythm and sonority through repetition and, with small alterations, receives other dimensions for the uttered text. Observe the way that leads us from dust to gold and from gold to dust:
Why does bronze not change into bronze dust, and iron into iron dust? But gold, silver, bronze and iron, all turn to dust of the earth? Yes. All to dust of the earth. Care for the illustrious proud one that is gold, and all that splendor when it falls will be dust of the earth. Care for the rich, haughty one that is silver and all that wealth when it falls will be dust, dust of the earth. Care for the robust one that is bronze, care for the brave one that is iron, one trustworthy, the other arrogant; and the that whole fortress, and all that courage, when they fall will be dust, dust of the earth.(7)
In his sermons Vieira repeats images while maintaining a rhythm capable of making the interlocutor repeatedly anticipate the differences in the same object. Images, solidified by fragments of memory that served only to conserve a superficial truth, dissolve. Vieira's repetition does not consolidate a fantasy, on the contrary, by means of repetition he reveals the mechanism which takes us beyond the figure and substitutes the symbol.
From Sermons to the Defense
Vieira manages to escape from the accusations made of him by the Holy Tribunal. He had suggested to Queen Luíza that the "royal patient" would not die as long as the prophesies of Bandarra were not fulfilled. Dom João would be the chosen one to complete the mission of "rescuing places and Saints and founding the universal monarchy of Christ in the world".
Upon evaluating Vieira's statements, the Inquisition judged his "orthodoxy" as "questionable" and did not like his writings, considering them "reckless, full of falsehood, and reprehensible". In order to answer these accusations Vieira composed his defense, in jail. He modified his narrative style so that it expressed without a doubt "subordination, surrender, and obedience". Being a prisoner, he let go of his dangerous, Baroque rhetoric. In his discourse on the captive he left aside the beauty of an open universe full of uncertainties, opting instead for another enclosed in the logic desired by the Holy Tribunal.
Vieira takes apart statements, clears up his motives and answers objections in a mirrored way. In his text he mirrors everything that the Tribunal wanted to hear. He constructs a tyrannical principle and uses a pedagogical form to express himself. His writing allows the inquisitive to see him as a captive, a captive in the writing. Observe:
It is not my intention, nor has it ever been, (as I have many times declared) to defend said Statements. For the only thing that I intend and have desired to show is subordination, surrender, and obedience that I profess and owe to the Church and its ministers and especially to those of this holy Tribunal, whose resolutions are and will be for me the greatest, most effective, and most evident motive of all that will be believed, followed, approved of, and held as most right. And if perchance (without intending to) I have swerved at all from the path of resignation, with what else can one or should one manifest said goodwill, veneration, and submission, in accordance with the customs of the Inquisition, and because I do not have any news of said customs, nor of anyone who might declare or insinuate them to me, and I have many times asked for someone to tell me the way I could and should show said great kindness, because this is the only thing I wanted, desired, and intended. And in accordance with this arrangement of my spirit and judgement, I say that if the motives are represented I here determine to, if some kind of minimal presumption follows, defend or oppose not only the resolutions but also the invitations of this Holy Tribunal; of course I cease and desist, and retract all that was written on this paper, I do not want it to be seen or have any effect at all because what I esteem and want more than to show myself innocent is to show myself obedient.(8)
Vieira's obedience is clear in content as well as form. It is expressed in the very narrative structure produced in order to reflect, as if it were a mirror, the desires of the Inquisition. Thus, during the trial the Baroque rhetoric is transformed into the "other", into Inquisitorial rhetoric.
This is the central question that characterizes the writing of the captive. Vieira participates in a dialog with the care and unselfishness of someone who sees the accusations from a distance. Aware of the form of the text, he can discriminate the meaning of the words and thus reproduce "the other" without leaving signs of his presence.
Thus, when he responds, Vieira abandons the stylistic rhythm to which he was dedicated. He abandons the antithetical ensembles and manner of repeating words and figures of speech.
In his defense, we observe that the narrative follows a definite direction. Questions are formulated and, borrowing from the Scriptures, Vieira presents the writing of the prophets:
The first place is the second chapter of Daniel, where he refers to the dream of the statue of Nebuchadnezzar. It had a gold head, a breast of silver, a belly of bronze, legs of iron and feet of iron and clay. And while Nebuchadnezzar was admiring what he saw (because the statue, as the text says, was great and had a terrible aspect) he viewed more than one mountain come tumbling down into stone without the touch of a hand; he struck the feet of the statue that the statue and its metals became dust and ash; the growing amount of stone became a mountain of such immense proportions that it covered all the land. Even here the dream or vision, which Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel forgot, for greater evidence of his prophetic spirit, referred to it thus as it had happened.(9)
During the inquiry, the statements elaborated by Vieira as well as the answers do not maintain any ambiguities. On the contrary, the text is clear, logical, and orderly in the exact way that the Church wanted to see him tell his story.
The typical ornaments of the sermons, which show the paradoxes of the world, disappear. In other words, as someone on trial, Vieira prefers to objectively show a statue and compose a continuous and linear image. The cited text is one among many other where the same structure is maintained. A written defense excludes doubt. The narrative must be accurate and conclusive. The deposition is a work done with the perfection of a language artist.
The Baroque rhythm is extremely dangerous, for, as a form, it survives from the imprecision of its limits. A text that answers the accusation cannot allow hidden meanings to show through. The inquisitors's doubt might represent for Vieira the total impossibility to continue to construct narrative forms capable of teaching one to think.
Vieira sacrifices the Baroque style to avoid irritating his accusers. It is important to note how the ornate rhetoric in Vieira's work expresses plurality of meanings and how plural meanings are dangerous for subverting the order of things.
To say, "For all that lives this life is not what it is, it is what it was, and it is what it will be"(10) is extremely dangerous. The reverse, safety, is repeating the Holy Scriptures in the same order of meanings:
The Angel did not declare which were the four empires indicated on the four beasts, but it is common sense among all priests, with no discrepancy, that they are literally those of the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Romans, which the four metals stand for on the statue.(11)
Reproducing the way things are ordered is safe for the Inquisitorial discourse. Our anti-hero, in the manner of Don Quixote, in his own hand wrote a mirrored response for the henchmen of his rhetoric:
It is a mirror of such different artifice that when looking at it we shall see not similarities to ourselves, but it with its look will make us similar to itself.(12)
Perhaps Vieira the captive allowed in his wording images of his accusers to be reflected by assuming that they were outside of himself. Or perhaps he composed so wisely and rigidly a line of argumentation because of knowing another, the argumentation of the opponents.
On the Baroque path of poetic prose, Vieira discovered how to obtain his freedom. He knew how to see himself and the other. Thus he could return free from the sign of paradox.
P.S. In this symposium of heroes, it is important to remember that Father Antônio Vieira died of old age.
1)Talk presented at the First International Congress on the Inquisition held by the Dept. of History and the School of Philosophy, Letters, and Humanities of the University of São Paulo, May 22 1987.
2)Jamil Almansur Haddad carefully selected a few seroms and wrote a critical essay for publication and summarized by Difel which is led by professor Vitor Ramos. The essay is extremely rich, making a reading of Vieira's work very easy. I followed his suggestions at various times in this chapter. They opened fertile paths for comparing the rhetoric of the sermons with the text in which Vieira answers the Tribunal.
3)Sermão da Sexagésima, preached in the Capela Real in 1655.
6)Sermão da Quarta-feira de Cinzas, preached in Rome in the Church of Saint Anthonly of the Portuguese in 1672.
8)Idem, Defense before the Inquisitorial Tribunal, Salvador, Livraria Progresso, 1957, Volume I, p. 3. This edition presents an interesting forward and notes by Hernani Cidade, that provides us with some important matters toward understanding the text.
10)Idem, Sermão da Quarta-feira de Cinzas.
11)Idem, Defense before the Inquisitorial Tribunal, Volume I, p. 237.
12)Idem, Sermão do Demônio Mudo, preached in the Convent of Odivelas, Nuns of the Patriarch Saint Bernard, 1651.
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